Aw, don't ever change, sad business man stock photos. This one is practically a short story. (Shutterstock)

Is it time to panic yet? Last week I told you about the one bright spot at the movies, The Master, which was earning $130 grand per location (largely driven by the fact that it wasn’t playing in many locations, but still) while the rest of the box office was down 18 percent from the same weekend last year. This week it’s even worse, with box office down 28 percent from the same weekend last year. I’m no business man, but 28 percent seems like a lot, doesn’t it? Like, if I tried to take out a loan and you told me the interest was 28 percent, I’d be all like, “Not even, homes, no thanks.”

According to studio estimates, House at the End of The Street [gratuitous picture of Jennifer Lawrence’s cleavage included] and End of Watch are tied with $13 million, while Trouble with the Curve isn’t far behind and could ultimately move up to the top spot. Without any break-out hit, the Top 12 earned an estimated $76.6 million this weekend, which is off a whopping 28 percent from the same frame last year.

House at the End of the Street topped recent “House” horror movies Dream House ($8.1 million) and Silent House ($6.7 million), but was a bit behind Last House on the Left ($14.1 million). The audience skewed young (70 percent under 25) and female (61 percent), and it was also predominantly Latino (52 percent). They gave the movie a “B” CinemaScore.

Seriously, there are enough other crappy horror movies with “house” in the title to be a basis for comparison? Gee, I can’t imagine why people weren’t rushing away from their flat screens in a hurry to buy seven-dollar popcorn for that one. Hey, but what about Dredd 3D? Wasn’t that one actually good?

In sixth place, comic book adaptation/remake Dredd bombed with just $6.3 million from 2,506 locations. That’s less than one-third of Kick-Ass‘s $19.8 million, and only a little over half of the original Judge Dredd‘s $12.3 million (and that movie was considered a flop 17 years ago!). It’s at least up on Shoot ‘Em Up ($5.7 million) and about on par with April’s Lockout ($6.2 million), though those comparisons suggest Dredd is on track for less than $20 million through its entire run.

Dredd‘s awful performance is the latest example of how the Comic-Con/online fanboy crowd just doesn’t make up a large portion of the moviegoers in this country. The movie came out of its Comic-Con screening in July with tons of online buzz and very strong reviews, and it maintained a 100 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes through at least its first 25 reviews (though it ultimately wound up at a more-reasonable 77 percent). As a result, the fanboy audience was very aware of this movie ahead of release, and anticipation seemed to be pretty high among this group as well. Ultimately, though, it’s just not a big-enough group to drive strong business. For a good dissection of the hazards of targeting fanboys, check out this piece from earlier this year in The Hollywood Reporter. [BoxOfficeMojo]

While it goes without saying that you shouldn’t hang your movie’s hopes on a neckbeard-centric marketing campaign, I don’t think this is really the best example of that. It ignores two important factors. First, it just wasn’t marketed that much. Not compared to other big action sci-fi films. I mean how many more ads have you seen for Looper? Dredd didn’t even screen for critics in some markets. Secondly, after Stallone’s 1995 Judge Dredd, releasing a movie called “Dredd” just has insurmountably negative name recognition. Remember ValuJet, and how they had to change their name? Dredd is the movie equivalent of starting a new airline called “ValuJet.” Even if it’s great, who’s going to want to find out? As a wise man named Jules once said, “sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I’d never know because I’d never eat the filthy motherf*cker.”

Moreover, a good 3D remake is still a 3D remake. And you’re not going to turn this kind of slide around with remakes.

Dredd’s performance is a disappointment. I blame those smug twats over at the AV Club. After the reviewer gave it a D+ the comment section got stuck in like a shoal of piranhas. Hopefully word of mouth will give it legs.

I don’t know about this Dredd business, but End of Watch was pretty rad. Go see that, but beware, there are some Awkward White People Moments in between the cartel gang violence and dudes in their chonies stuff.

I still plan to see Dredd but I saw a fair bit of advertising for it, too. I think the trailers did not look that great and there were no stars to market it around. Dredd is a 40-year-old comic book and a remake of a shitty Stallone flick…that’s a tough spot to be in from the get-go.

But seriously, once the “on demand/hulu+/itunes/netflix” people figure out how to get new releases available for purchase the “same day” they come out in theaters, there’s no way the movie theater industry doesn’t collapse.

oh, that and they don’t make very many good movies anymore, that’ll have something to do with it.

Same-day releases on big budget movies will never be a reality. Part of the value of a movie is scarcity, as far as scarcity of the venues where you can see it, e.g. not your house. If you want to be a cool kid, you gotta see Avengers in the theater so you can talk about it at school the next day. There’s still a lot of value in that, for the consumer and the studios. They are not going to kill the blockbuster cow, not in a million years.

There’s also value in seeing a good movie on a screen that has more square footage than your house, with good sound, with a group of like-minded people. Prometheus will not be the same at home, viewed by yourself. That experience will not be the same. Never.

Movies didn’t kill books or libraries. TV didn’t kill radio or the movie industry. VHS, DVD’s, on-demand, cable et al have not succeeded in killing the movie theater industry. Not saying the landscape hasn’t changed but the industry as a whole will not die.

BTW ” they don’t make very many good movies anymore” will also kill Netflix, iTunes and hulu+. Theaters are just another way to showcase movies, they don’t make the content any better or worse. Plus this sentiment is BS. If you stay home and watch hulu+ and Netflix, of course you’re not seeing any movies, much less any good ones. Citations: Prometheus, Lawless, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Ruby Sparks, Safety Not Guaranteed, The Avengers, Cabin in the Woods, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Goon, Pina 3D, 21 Jump Street … There have literally been dozens of good movies released this year. And last year. And every year before that.

I agree, but honestly, the theater chains are being pushed to the brink, financially. We’ve already seen that attendance is dropping because of prices. That trend is not going to turn itself around anytime soon and it’s going to start wearing away at theaters.

Besides, people love shitty movies. They eat shitty movies up with a spoon. Quality is not now and never has been the issue, because your average moviegoer is a fucking baboon.

“on demand/hulu+/itunes/netflix” these services also work for TV, So a lack of decent movies only hurts their business, not cripples it. Movie theaters only provide one option.

What Dan said about prices is probably the biggest factor, after the crappy quality of movies. People might be apt to watch shitty movies, but they’ll wait to watch them on demand, in their own house, and not pay 75 dollars to take their family to it in a theater.

Dredd isn’t anywhere near a remake. If it is anything, it’s more like a sequel. “Judge Dredd” is an origin story,(sort of) and “Dredd” is a continuation of what has been established. That word, “remake,” is a big factor in what’s killing that movie.

Agreed. It’s a misnomer to call any movie that has been done before a “remake” or “reboot”. Case in point, “The Amazing Spider-Man”. Sure, one could argue that the only reason it was made was so that Sony could maintain the rights to the character, that aside, I consider it just another interpretation. It wasn’t trying to build upon or improve the Raimi 3.

I didn’t see the Stallone Dredd, I was too young and didn’t care, but I do want to see this new one.

I more meant that it was going to be perceived as a remake no matter what they did. And you know what? If there’s a movie that’s been made before with almost the same name, that’s basically a remake. Saying it isn’t is splitting hairs.

I get the “remake” term usage argument, I’m only adding that in the movie medium, that’s just how it’s referred to and it will always be that way I imagine. You don’t call Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns a “remake” of Batman, because it’s a comic book story which is a medium that lends itself to many interpretations of the same damn thing and people are fine with it because it’s a tiny demographic and that’s just been the norm for a long time. I try to view comic book movies as their own interpretations and am trying to get away from the “remake” or “reboot” (although as Vince pointed out, that’s what it basically is, but it gets a nasty stigma by using that, hence terrible box office numbers apparently as well.) mindset, but I see the general audience has trouble with that, and it’s why there are pointless arguments about why Chris Reeves’ Superman is THE Superman, why do we NEED another Spider-Man what happened to Toby Maquire, blah blah blah.

You can’t do the same thing in movies as you can in comics, you can’t reinterpret a character three times in 8 years and expect to make money off of it if the first one bombed. If someone came along and made a badass Green Lantern right now, it wouldn’t matter because it would fucking flop because of that turd we got before. I’m surprised FOX is still going with Wolverine to be honest, after the pretty across-the-board terrible reviews the last one had. I didn’t think the box office numbers were good either but apparently good enough. They are milking that turd, and I think every comic book fan is just about sick of seeing Hugh Jackman as Logan and that’s why we’ve been saying “Another X-Men PLEASE GOD” for a long time now. We thought we were getting it with First Class, which was a decent movie but since they are trying to connect it to the previous movies and using things like that obnoxious Logan cameo, it just pisses me off. Just drop the trying to stick within your own continuity thing FOX, because as many of us can tell you, you’ve butchered it and just give it a chance to die and be “remade” into something worth a damn. Okay I’m done.

And I should point out that the “general audience” isn’t the only people who have problems separating comic movies from each other, avid comic book movie fans have problems with it too and are very vocal about it. My original point, although it was lost, is more Jennifer Lawrence boobs please.

Well I don’t think anyone thought comic-book movies would explode the way they did. To be honest, I’m exhausted from the sheer output of comic-book related movies that we’ve had to put up with. Vince, I think you made this point a few months back that people aren’t going to the theaters anymore because often it’s horror movie/remake, comic book movie/remake, classic remake that nobody asked for, and nestled in there every so often is an honestly good film like The Master or Magic Mike, or 21 Jump Street. But the ratio is way too skewed for the good movies to make up for the bad ones.

Right Mattyj, that was my point too, that it’s a different medium so the different “rules” so to speak, apply. Just showing how something in one medium is the norm and in another it can be a financially-stunting weigh down. Of course Batman had a few years from it’s last nail in the coffin so that also helped, but yes I agree Batman Begins didn’t reach even a quarter of the acclaim the TDK did (and one can say that was because of the name association alone, but Batman will always sell tickets regardless), but it did show us the character wasn’t dead on film just yet. Yay Nolan. And now someone else will get a chance to do their own thing, and who knows how they’ll go. They could make it interesting again or screw it up GL style.

On topic of J. Lawrence, I agree totally olayer! I prefer mine thick also, but she had a “bloat-face” as I dubbed it. She’s seemed to have gotten hotter for me since then, but that movie, she did seem very pufferfish. But her body was always rocking. I don’t know if it was the makeup or what, I think the makeup made her forehead and cheeks stand out way more than they should. But I haven’t seen First Class for a long time so my memory isn’t fresh.

And on the notion of way too many remakes in horror, comics, etc, I agree with that too. Total Recall, Judge Dredd and Robocop within such a short time of each other? It seems the “trend” is becoming HIGHLY visible for Hollywood now, they are stretching back even to movies that didn’t do good the FIRST time around for their ideas. I mean Battleship…really? They are just using names now to sell movies, I’m waiting for Hasbro: the movie and Mattel: Plastic Awakening. They might as well. I just saw news on a Manimal movie taken from a show that lasted one short season. I can’t wait for the sequels spawned from La-Z-Boy the movie.

It’s unfortunate about Dredd, but I see the logic behind how that went down. Another factor about now vs. “Judge Dredd” is that we were still in the rental store and cable days. Between Netflix, Hulu, HBOGO, etc I have access to more hours of quality programming than I could ever really watch. High speed internet and places like this site give me an idea of what I might be interested in and what I should probably avoid. I didn’t have that with Judge Dredd times. In a release weekend when “The Master” and “Dredd” are the best things going, though these films are good, they don’t appeal to everyone. Everything else this weekend (besides End of Watch, supposedly) sucked. Not to sound like an old turd, but you didn’t have that freedom of choice that you have now. This summer alone, I saw probably half the amount of movies I usually see, because I have the ability to be much more informed about what I watch. This trend isn’t really going to turn around, especially if things like Hulu and Netflix continue to amp up.

If you’ve got a good story it will sell. Then when you’re done with the story, quit. Look at J.K. Rowling and the “Harry Potter” films. First, people couldn’t get enough of the books; remember the midnight parties at bookstores when each successive novel came out? Then they skillfully edited and adapted the books to the big screen and the frenzy continued, with the result that the entire series (as of April 2012) has raked in something like $7.7 BILLION dollars.

Or take the “Star Wars” franchise. Sure it was a remake of just about any Western film you want to name — bad guys take over town; good guys fight back against insurmountable odds; suffer setbacks but eventually win — set in space …. but it was done well (and the SFX didn’t hurt things any) and it’s made a boatload of money for Lucas et al.

Forgot to add the most important part — when the story has been told, then quit. Always leave the public looking for more. The Potter novels are done; the movies have been made; and that’s it. We don’t need a ‘follow-up’ like “Son of Harry Potter” or “The Further Adventures of Dobby the House Elf”. Otherwise you’ll end up with something like the “007” franchise, which is just limping along as it quickly approaches the “Dr. Who” series in terms of the number of different people to have played the lead character — although at least the Whovians have some sort of explanation, far-fetched though it may be, for why the Doctor never looks the same twice.